By Miki de Goodaboom

Stage 4 of  “The Tour Of  Teddies” leads me to teddy “Comtessine Tivolie De Lafontaine”, originally called “Happy Ziggy Chicky”.

I adopted her during my painting trip to Copenhagen in May 2017, while I was visiting the famous attraction park ‘Tivoli Gardens”. I was immensely happy to meet her there, as I had not seen many teddies in Copenhagen.

She was born in Sweden, at Barbara Bukowski’s house.

She is a birthday present from my Mom.

She looks like an aristocratic Teddy,  hence the name “Comtessine”. The family name “De Lafontaine” is the name which have all the Teddies given to me by My Mom. Her own family name (my too) is “Fonvielle”, which means something like “Old Source”. A “fontaine” is a source… So, ‘De Lafontaine” is the “aristocratisation” of Fonvielle, somehow…  and a wink  to our famous fabulist and poet “Jean De La Fontaine”, who wrote these wonderful animal fables.

Comtessine Tivolie wears a chicken costume. She wanted to take a “chicken bath”, to know how it is to be a real chicken, so she asked me to bring her to a poultry yard. It was not the best idea ever, I felt that poor Contessine was a bit scared there by all the noisy clucking and weird looks she got. Chicken are not silly, you know, and despite her disguise, they did get that she was not really one of theirs!

Comtessine was glad then to be back home among all her brothers and sisters!